WorldHistory.com, a new service from FamilyLink, launched into private beta testing with interactive maps, timelines, videos, geocoded photos, museum artifacts and family trees.

The video demos (you're looking at one in the screenshot below) show what you’ll be able to do on the site. For example, you can look at a map showing where events happened during a time period you’re interested in. You also can see locations of related events, such as Revolutionary War battles.

Family historians can create family trees that plot ancestors on maps and show events during their lives, and link to photos of the area.

According to at least one Tech blogger, “The company also says they are developing an iPhone application that will show you interesting historical events near where you are at any given time.” Cool.

Even before learning some tricks while working on our January 2009 Family Tree Magazine genealogy Googling article, my favorite Google trick was the site search. I’d be racking my brain because I knew I saw something about probate
records on some page of a site, and for the life of me I couldn’t find it
again.

I go to my Google toolbar and type in site: plus the URL and the search terms, and Google will search just that site. For example, say I want to find FamilySearch’s Denmark research outline. Here’s my Google search: site:www.familysearch.org denmark research outline.

Other tools I love: language translation (handy when editing foreign-research articles), area code lookup and—since I found out about them from the googling article—the currency converter and calculator tools.

Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System: Start your search for Union or Confederate Civil War ancestors in this database of 6.3 million soldiers’ names (names appear twice if soldiers fought for more than one regiment or used a different name) from 44 states and territories. Names link to information about the regiments and the battles they fought.

DeadFred: If you're starting from a pile of old photos or you’re looking for lost family pictures, this photo-reunion site is the place to click. Search by surname, and if you find a match, contact the submitter for information. DeadFred's collection encompasses some 14,600 surnames and 76,00 records, and it's reunited 1,227 old photos with families.

She was one of the researchers who attended how-to classes and visited with representatives of local genealogical societies, the Hamilton County Recorder’s Office and others. It was great to see familiar faces from other genealogy gatherings and talk with newbie researchers.

The fair marked Family History Month, observed in October in many states. See if your local genealogical society (run a Google search or look here for links) or library (find links here) has any events going on.

You’ll need to sign up for a free account, which requires your name and an e-mail address, to see yearbook pages. I think I found a great-uncle on this page (arrow added) about special Friday evening and Saturday science classes at a Cincinnati high school.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

The search engine annoyingly catches first and last names that don’t belong to the same person but appear near each other. It clogs up the results, but fortunately, a little preview shot of the yearbook page helps you avoid clicking those false matches.

Remember to use your female ancestor’s maiden name (or whichever name she used while in school).

I’ve always been an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kind of girl. As a kid, I was the first one to fall asleep at slumber parties and get her hand dipped in warm water (it doesn’t work, by the way).

So when I signed up for last Friday’s genealogy lock-in at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, I was worried I’d pass out on a city directory and end up with street names tattooed on my forehead. But I managed to last almost 'til the end.

If you've never been to a lock-in, it’s an after-hours research session at a library. Around 30 researchers (all the tables were taken!) had the genealogy and periodicals departments all to ourselves. I recognized a few people from April’s Ohio Genealogical Society conference.

The pursuit of family history kept everyone awake and focused, including me. I hadn’t made a firm research plan, so I wasn’t expecting thrilling discoveries. And I didn’t make any, but I got some groundwork laid.

I started off using the library’s free wireless to try some Ancestry.com searches for my dad’s family, who remain absent from the 1920 census. I did find the Social Security Death Index entry for the man who vouched for my great-uncle when he applied for a delayed North Carolina birth certificate in 1971.

Next I turned to Cincinnati city directories. My great-great-grandfather on my mom’s side started a cigar store in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, and his family ran it for years. When I was little, my mom drove me by the building—it had an outline where the “H.A. Seeger Cigar” sign used to be.

Here's a photo from around 1910:

(My great-great-grandfather is third from left; his son is in the doorway).

I wanted to see how long the store was open. My ancestor H.A. Seeger showed up in printed directories starting in 1875, when he boarded downtown, then in 1877, when he opened the cigar store (the family moved in above it). The store's listing disappears after 1955. Here’s a Google street view of the building today:

It was late by the time I was through photocopying directories. I decided to save map research for my next library trip, and browsed the compilations of vital records, church records and cemetery transcriptions from counties across the country.

Then I found my husband’s late-80s photographs among the high school yearbooks. That was entertaining.

I don’t know if it was the 80s hair or the hour, but I could feel my brain switch to Off mode, so I packed up my laptop and papers, checked my forehead for accidental tattoos (none), said goodbye to the bleary-eyed souls still scrolling microfilm, and went home to get some shut-eye for the next day’s Family History Fair. I’ll write about that tomorrow.

Automated Genealogy: Those with Canadian roots will appreciate this free, volunteer site with transcriptions and indexes of Canadian censuses.

Transcribed and in various stages of proofreading are the 1901, 1906 (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) and 1911 enumerations. The 1851-1852 census is underway, with an ambitious effort to link to other online records about each individual.

Avotaynu: Use this site’s Consolidated Jewish Surname Index to run a Soundex search of information about 699,084 surnames, mostly Jewish, in 42 databases totaling more than 7.3 million records. You also can subscribe to Avotaynu’s free e-mail newsletter on Jewish genealogy.

Two announcements from the subscription genealogy data service Ancestry.com today:

Ancestry.com has renamed AncestryPress, its online self-publishing service, and given it a new Web site. It’s now called MyCanvas, and it looks (to me, anyway) more like popular photo-gift sites such as Shutterfly and Snapfish. The emphasis isn’t just on making family history books, either—you also can create photo books, photo posters and family chart posters with a variety of backgrounds.

Ancestry.com members can automatically create family history books and family tree posters from what’s in their member trees (and they can save $50 on any premium MyCanvas book with the coupon code MCPREM8).

This is my first game of blog-tag. To play, I’m supposed to answer questions my tagger, Dear Myrtle, sent. Here goes:

10 Years Ago I ...1. Became assistant editor of Decorative Artist’s Workbook magazine.2. Took a week-long painting workshop in Florida so I’d know what I was talking about.3. Would answer the magazine’s e-mail using an AOL account on a shared computer.4. Moved into my first apartment that was all mine.5. Knew the names of only two of my great-grandparents.

Five Things on Today's To-Do List1. Finish up our E-mail Update newsletter.2. Edit an article about library online catalogs.3. Be interviewed for the DearMyrtle podcast.4. Prepare for my first-ever genealogy lock-in tomorrow night.5. Get together with a friend to plan another friend’s baby shower.

Five Places I’ve Lived1. Beaverton, Ore.2. St. Louis3. CincinnatiThat's all there is, guys, and I might be here awhile.

Five Jobs I’ve Had1. Ice cream scooper2. Cashier/hostess at a Big Boy3. Department store gift-wrapper4. University law library information desk staff5. Newspaper stringer(Don’t worry, I’m qualified to work for Family Tree Magazine—the odd jobs are just more interesting to mention.)